Guess Which Hand?

BooBear is turning into a 3 year old, with lots of new games. Like, "Guess which hand, Mommy?" He lets you pick one hand and then the other - because there is never anything actually in his hands. Then he pulls the item out from behind his back and proudly says, "Here it is!" I guess that's his interpretation. He also pretends things are 'broken,' like our shopping cart at the store today, and he yells "Stop!" and then pretends to fix the wheels before we can go again. Sometimes his explanations are logical, and sometimes non sequitus, and I am reminded that this was the age when my brother Ovaltine used to tell the funniest jokes.

Little Miss loves to talk to people, especially if they smile and talk to her. Her new game is trying to pull her binky out of her mouth with her fingers and then get it back in. So far, she has gotten close, and has even turned it all the way around to the back. She is also a good sleeper, sleeping on a schedule, usually only waking up once between 10pm and 6am. So different than her brother was.

Projects and Fun

I thought I should share what we have been up to these past few weeks.

Um, I put in this pic just because my baby is so darn cute. She is a pretty patient Little Miss, even during her baths.

Here is BooBear with a sparkler at his Aunt Sue's house. This is the first year that he enjoyed fireworks. The last two years, I have had to keep him inside because he was so scared.

BooBear arranged the pieces of the Yahtzee game on his bed one day, Werty called it BooBear's first photo composition or something like that.

Here is the construction going on across the street. It starts every morning around 7am, even on Saturdays. It's very loud and dusty.

Werty's cousin and her kids were in town for our monthly FHE, and we had them over for a backyard BBQ. As you can see, we finished the sandbox. We got too much sand, so we have been giving some of it away to those we know who already have sandboxes and might need some "refill."

All of Werty's cousins' kids like babies, so they all wanted to hold Little Miss.

 Werty has been fixing up his motorcycle. He hasn't really ridden it in three years. Turns out, it has a leak in the gas tank. He is actually working on it right now. There is a complex process of prepping the gas tank for the apoxy sealant to work. One step involves putting screws inside the tank to scrape out the deposits. Then you take a magnet thing (shown here) to get all the screws out again. Here is the magnet picking up all the deposits. Werty took this pic because he thought it looked like his magnet wand had a mullet.

We had play group at our house again this week. This is what the sandbox looks like now that we have given away some of the sand. BooBear calls the group of cousins close to his own age his "real cousins" after the BBQ with his 2nd cousins. He wants us to know that when he says he wants to see his cousins, he means these guys, his "real cousins."

 

We have also been working on the unfinished wall in our basement. Werty took it apart (as seen above with BooBear trying to hammer nails into wood), put in 5 new outlets and the fiberoptic cable for our internet. We are currently in the middle of the mudding process. In the first pic, you can see that one of the outlets is high up. The plan is to mount a TV there eventually. So, yes, we have been working on a lot of projects these last few weeks.

Little Miss' Baby Blessing

Last week Little Miss had her 2 month check up. She weighed in at 10 lbs 12 oz which is 60th percentile, her height (I need to check the exact numbers when she isn't asleep in the same room as the paper) and head circumference were both 50th percentile. She seems to definitely be taking after me, with her average size, compared to her big brother who was always 90-100th percentile in head size like his daddy (or at least we assume since they didn't actually measure head size back then.)

We had a wonderful experience last week with around 50 people there to support our Little Miss at her baby blessing. We had Valinda and her crew for the whole weekend, which was tons of fun. Plus I got to meet her cute Jack-Jack, who is 5 weeks older than Little Miss. A big thank you to everyone who helped get the food laid out, especially Klari and Valinda who came home early from RS with me to help. Little Miss was happy to sleep most of the time and she was content to be held by everyone. She is definitely a cuddlebug.

I was smarter with this child, and I went in for her shots the day after her blessing instead of right before. I also fed her before everyone showed up, so that she was a happy baby, not a starving baby. There was one minor hiccup, Little Miss and I were the last to arrive. I think people forget we don't have a cell phone, so when they call our number, they don't realize that they are keeping me at home in order to take their calls to ask for directions 2 minutes before church starts. As I was rushing down the sidewalk (in heels) to get there, my ankle rolled slightly, and Little Miss and I went down. Thankfully, my leg, and not Little Miss, took the damage. Falling while holding my baby is one of those "nightmare situations" that I randomly worry about, so I was very grateful that 1) she wasn't hurt at all and 2) her beautiful dress wasn't ripped (the dress was made by Ddonn, the detail work and headband are original pieces from my wedding dress)

Here are some photos to enjoy from last weekend:

The two babies in their rock'n sleepers:

My namesake with Ddonn's namesake:

 Aunt S to the rescue, keeping the kiddos busy making paper hats while lunch is finished being laid out:

 Gram and Grandpa

Our new family of four:

Aunt M

Here is Grandma Betty with all three of her great-granddaughters:

A bee or not a bee?

I have some catching up to do, so bear with me. Two weeks ago, Werty and I were having a discussion. Because we live near a big park, we have a lot of bees around. Werty is happy about this fact, because when we lived in Provo, he hadn't seen a non-yellow jacket bee for years. And you hear about the cataclysmic effects to food production if bee were to die out. Then there was the study that showed how cell phone frequencies are sometimes close to the same frequency bees use, which cause the bees to become confused and fly in an adrenaline-like rage until they fall over dead. So, this discussion was about what a hornet really is. I remember some other child during outside play pointing to one of those big, fat oversize bees that are sometimes white and black instead of yellow, and telling me it was white because it was called a hornet, not a honey bee, and they were something to be feared because they could sting you multiple times. Someone later told me that yellow jackets could also sting multiple times, but they weren't as big a "hornet" so the sting wasn't as bad. Honey bees (as Werty calls them) or "bumblebees" (as I was raised to call them) on the other hand, die after they sting you. We have all come across a dying bee at some time in our childhood which has lost it's stinger, so all evidence seemed to suggest that my information was accurate. Well, Werty tells me, no, those are just big, fat, fuzzy honey bees, and that hornets have smooth bodies with long thin abdomens. I knew what he was referring to, after all, hadn't I just removed one of those brands of hornets from my kitchen the day before? I had just assumed there were too types of hornets, just like there are two types of bumblebees.

So, my sister and I take our kids to the park on Friday, two days after Werty and I had this discussion about hornets and whether or not big, fat, fuzzy bees can sting more than once. We are chatting, and I feel something on my leg, just below my knee. I doesn't shake out, so I reach up my pant leg to investigate, and it's definitely something alive, some kind of bug. Please be a junebug, please be a junebug, I say in my head as I lift up my pant leg to reveal one of the biggest, fattest, fuzziest and ANGRY bumblebees I have ever seen. One of those bees I was incorrectly taught to call a "hornet." It was about an inch and a half long. Once I got it removed from my leg, it crawled around for a few seconds and then flew away, a very healthy creature. It left behind a small tingling, burning sensation and a number of red spots.

That afternoon I got to call my sweetie and tell him, guess what honey? They may not be real hornets, but I have proof that those big, fat, fuzzy bees can sting multiple times and live to sting again! The next day I counted 5 different sting sites, starting at where I first felt the bee near my knee, and ending 4-5 inches lower where I had finally extricated it. I am guessing it crawled up the boot cut pant leg of my jeans, and then crawled on to my skin only when it couldn't go any further. My sister felt like some good came of this, other than me being right about bees, because her daughter is scared of bees. She thought that seeing someone else getting stung and surviving it with very little drama might help her overcome her fear. Let's hope so.

Blessing Invite

I sent out the email today with the information for Little Miss' baby blessing. In case I sent it to the wrong email, or something, I am posting it here as well. Her blessing will be on June 24th at 9am, with a luncheon at 12:15pm. You can call me for more details.

BBQ with the Cousins

We had the family over at our house for a Memorial Day BBQ. After dinner, we took the kiddos across the street to the park. Enjoy. the pictures!

Baby Story

 I took these last two earlier tonight!

So, it's been a month since I posted a few pictures and promised to tell her birth story. I kind of had my hands full all month - and typing requires the use of my hands. :P

I went in to be induced Thursday morning. Unlike last time, they did not make me come in the night before and keep me up most of the night being "observed." I was already at a 2+, so I only needed the pitocin. We were a little late arriving because we had to get BooBear up and to his Aunt BBug's house, getting there at 6:30 instead of 6am. My doctor came and broke my water around 8am. Since I learned last time that my body does much better being induced with the epidural to help things relax and progress, I got the drugs soon after the contractions started. For 45 minutes, Werty and I just chilled and dozed while we watched the monitors. Then things started to pick up. With BooBear, they had the pitocin cranked up to the max at 25, back down to 12, and then up to 25 again. This time with my little Miss, the highest they went was 12, and then things were going so fast, they turned it down to an 8. They needed me to wait long enough for my second dose of penicillin, so once again I had to resist the urge to push as the contractions were intense enough that I could feel them through the drugs. The worst part of the whole experience was the second dose of penicillin - they had the drip turned up so that it would only take 15 minutes to finish. I watched the clock as my arm was on fire for those 15 minutes. Halfway through I was relieved when I learned that I only had to endure 15 minutes this time instead of 30 minutes. My doctor arrived, the nurse told her that we needed to wait until 11:08 for the antibiotics dose to be done. So, at 11:08, everyone took their places and set me up to start pushing. I pushed twice to get her head out, and twice to get her shoulders out - four pushes back to back - and she was born at 11:11am. Four hours of easy labor. It was such a pleasant experience. And at this hospital, they bathe the baby and run their first battery of tests right there in the delivery room. I wasn't separated from my baby this time. That made me very happy.The only challenge we had was that her blood sugar was very low when she was born, which often happens in cases of gestational diabetes. I asked the nurse if she had checked her blood sugar yet, and she went to go ask if it needed to be done. She came back and did the test a few minutes later. My poor girl was pricked about 5 times on the heel that day as we fed her three bottles of formula and tested her blood sugar until it was up to normal levels. So, for those who hadn't already heard the story, there it is. We are so grateful to have our new little girl join our family!